Liberal (Minority/Majority) Government 2025 - ???

[PPCLI Guy]

Apparently Joly's Stern letter didn't scare anyone.

Stelco says it is proceeding with Ontario layoffs after Ottawa issues ultimatum​

https://archive.is/F3LcV

How else should the government have initiated what will clearly be a legal fight? Air strike? Unilateral declaration of ownership? Taking the plant by force? Arresting all the leadership? Deporting them as undesireable?

This is not Venezuela, and we are not the US, thank fuck.

 

[brihard]

How else should the government have initiated what will clearly be a legal fight? Air strike? Unilateral declaration of ownership? Taking the plant by force? Arresting all the leadership? Deporting them as undesireable?

This is not Venezuela, and we are not the US, thank fuck.

Yup, any legal mechanisms to enforce terms of past agreement will be procedural and pretty boring. There’s also a significant political risk if this is handled hamfistedly. Stelco is an American company. Any steps that deprive them of control over or possession or their assets will quickly get the attention of an administration that doesn’t see any particular need to honour agreements if they don’t feel like it. Steel is already a hot button topic.

This needs to be managed carefully, and it will probably be boring to watch.

 

[Czech_pivo]

Some, but clearly not all, can be attributed to kids heading back to school full time. But with that being said, not a good showing. Alberta though knocked the cover off the ball again. Signs that the oil patch is starting to get its mojo back? Would be a great thing for the entire country if this is true.

Why is that funny?

 

[Jarnhamar]

How else should the government have initiated what will clearly be a legal fight? Air strike? Unilateral declaration of ownership? Taking the plant by force? Arresting all the leadership? Deporting them as undesireable?

This is not Venezuela, and we are not the US, thank fuck.

Naw, no airstrikes. I'm simply pointing out Joly's stern letter and ultimatum didn't scare anyone into compliance.

I would say an actual legal fight should be initiated through legal channels. This letter looks more like political posturing written and released for public consumption.

 

[PPCLI Guy]

Naw, no airstrikes. I'm simply pointing out Joly's stern letter and ultimatum didn't scare anyone into compliance.

I would say an actual legal fight should be initiated through legal channels. This letter looks more like political posturing written and released for public consumption.

Or....

The letter is Exhibit A in court, and a necessary step in the court of public opinion

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Some good news... the public sector is getting smaller:

‘Quite disappointing’: Economists react to weak September jobs report​

“That’s been a theme for all of this year. We now have total employment in Canada down 41,000 this year, but all of those are in the public sector.”

‘Quite disappointing’: Economists react to weak September jobs report

Canada’s sluggish economy has lost more than 100,000 jobs over the past two months amid a bitter trade war with the U.S., but economists say the hardest hit area has been the public sector, rather than industries directly impacted by tariffs.

www.bnnbloomberg.ca

Apparently Joly's Stern letter didn't scare anyone.

Stelco says it is proceeding with Ontario layoffs after Ottawa issues ultimatum​

https://archive.is/F3LcV

Stelco, has been a dog's breakfast for 20 years. It hasn't been owned by Canadians for two decades and has gone through multiple American owners hands since then.

Whole lot of bark without any bite behind it!

 

[brihard]

Why is that funny?

He does that. Laugh react but no actual comment challenging anything. You get used to it.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Or....

The letter is Exhibit A in court, and a necessary step in the court of public opinion

The issue is they gave them $$$. Which was a mistake. It was done for partisan political reasons of course. They could take them to court, but to what end? Nationalize the company? There is no market for the product here.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Or....

The letter is Exhibit A in court, and a necessary step in the court of public opinion

Great point

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Or....

The letter is Exhibit A in court, and a necessary step in the court of public opinion

FTFY

Exhibit A. Period.

There is a requirement in Canadian law that before you undertake civil proceedings (which this would be since it is based in contract law), you have to put your co-contracting party in default by way of notice. this is what this letter does, regardless of whether it was drafted to sound "political" or not.

 

[Eaglelord17]

The issue is they gave them $$$. Which was a mistake. It was done for partisan political reasons of course. They could take them to court, but to what end? Nationalize the company? There is no market for the product here.

A lot of steel production in Canada has been greatly hurt by the tariffs. Algoma Steel for example mainly produced coil and a small amount of plate before. Now because of only being able to sell to the Canadian market, it is opposite and nowhere near the same tonnage.

Steel manufacturing in Canada needs investment into different manufacturing lines if we want it to survive (which I would consider a matter of national strategic importance). Algoma was going to get a new structural steel line if the Feds went with South Korean subs but that went sideways.

Stelco might just need the same, maybe getting it out of American hands isn’t a terrible idea.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

A lot of steel production in Canada has been greatly hurt by the tariffs. Algoma Steel for example mainly produced coil and a small amount of plate before. Now because of only being able to sell to the Canadian market, it is opposite and nowhere near the same tonnage.

Steel manufacturing in Canada needs investment into different manufacturing lines if we want it to survive (which I would consider a matter of national strategic importance). Algoma was going to get a new structural steel line if the Feds went with South Korean subs but that went sideways.

Stelco might just need the same, maybe getting it out of American hands isn’t a terrible idea.

The fundamental issue isn't a lack of government subsidies or product diversity, it's market scale. Canada’s domestic market simply isn't large enough to absorb current steel production volumes without seamless access to the U.S. supply chain, regardless of who owns the mills.

Retooling facilities like Algoma for structural steel or relying on speculative military procurement sounds promising, but high capital retooling costs require massive, guaranteed long-term volume to be viable and Canadians hate spending $$$ on improving productivity. Simply throwing more taxpayer dollars at new lines or pushing for domestic ownership fails to fix the core problem: a demand deficit that government intervention alone cannot offset.

 

[YZT580]

The fundamental issue isn't a lack of government subsidies or product diversity, it's market scale. Canada’s domestic market simply isn't large enough to absorb current steel production volumes without seamless access to the U.S. supply chain, regardless of who owns the mills.

Retooling facilities like Algoma for structural steel or relying on speculative military procurement sounds promising, but high capital retooling costs require massive, guaranteed long-term volume to be viable and Canadians hate spending $$$ on improving productivity. Simply throwing more taxpayer dollars at new lines or pushing for domestic ownership fails to fix the core problem: a demand deficit that government intervention alone cannot offset.

what steel are we importing from China? Are the orders large enough to establish a line in any of the plants and eliminate the imported stuff? Stelco used to manufacture plate until their American owners shipped the furnaces south. I know that our shipbuilding efforts on their own don't absorb enough product by themselves. Being foreign-owned, regardless of the current climate, means that the principle orders will always go to the domestic furnaces first so maybe it is time to re-claim Stelco as our own. The news out of Europe indicates that their furnaces are being closed due to energy costs so perhaps we can get that market going.

 

[YZT580]

Some folks have signed a Pledge.

That one is easy, I quit with Tims when they did away with their coffee mugs and went all paper.

 

[FJAG]

Naw, no airstrikes. I'm simply pointing out Joly's stern letter and ultimatum didn't scare anyone into compliance.

I would say an actual legal fight should be initiated through legal channels. This letter looks more like political posturing written and released for public consumption.

Pretty much every lawsuit I ever initiated or responded to started with a stern letter. Often a flurry of stern letters back and forth.

 

[MilEME09]

Some, but clearly not all, can be attributed to kids heading back to school full time. But with that being said, not a good showing. Alberta though knocked the cover off the ball again. Signs that the oil patch is starting to get its mojo back? Would be a great thing for the entire country if this is true.

Looks like O&G is slowing actually, job growth is being lead by science and technical services.

AB full-time wages drop to 4th place in Sep 2026

This is the first time in over 3 years they have been below third place.

albertaworker.ca

 

[daftandbarmy]

Looks like O&G is slowing actually, job growth is being lead by science and technical services.

View attachment 102604

AB full-time wages drop to 4th place in Sep 2026

This is the first time in over 3 years they have been below third place.

albertaworker.ca

Management consultants be like...

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Looks like O&G is slowing actually, job growth is being lead by science and technical services.

View attachment 102604

AB full-time wages drop to 4th place in Sep 2026

This is the first time in over 3 years they have been below third place.

albertaworker.ca

Doubtful, lumping Forestry, Fishing, Mining & O&G together is like saying apples and oranges are the same thing.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Pretty much every lawsuit I ever initiated or responded to started with a stern letter. Often a flurry of stern letters back and forth.

Was that a legal requirement?

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

what steel are we importing from China? Are the orders large enough to establish a line in any of the plants and eliminate the imported stuff? Stelco used to manufacture plate until their American owners shipped the furnaces south. I know that our shipbuilding efforts on their own don't absorb enough product by themselves. Being foreign-owned, regardless of the current climate, means that the principle orders will always go to the domestic furnaces first so maybe it is time to re-claim Stelco as our own. The news out of Europe indicates that their furnaces are being closed due to energy costs so perhaps we can get that market going.

You’re proving my point on foreign ownership risk, but the rest of the math simply doesn't hold up.

Reclaiming Stelco won't create demand out of thin air. Without guaranteed high-volume domestic need across all sectors, a Canadian-owned mill faces the exact same structural deficit. Chinese import volumes are fragmented across dozens of specialized product grades, meaning total tonnage still falls well short of the multi-million-tonne threshold needed to justify a dedicated mill to replace them.

As for Europe, targeting their market ignores massive transatlantic ocean freight costs and carbon border taxes that destroy any profit margin. At the end of the day, we can't subsidize or nationalize our way past basic market size. Without seamless access to North American supply chains, isolated Canadian lines will just run under capacity at taxpayer expense.

We've seen this sort of thing before: it starts with a Cape and ends with a Breton. I'm a Maritimer with a long memory.

Turning uncompetitive mills into state-backed heritage projects to preserve jobs or signal industrial pride is how you end up with another Sysco / Sydney Steel: decades of endless taxpayer bailouts, billions spent chasing markets that don't exist, and an eventual collapse that leaves the public holding the bill. You can't nationalize or subsidize your way past basic market reality.